Video game helps young hockey players develop skills

The U.S. senior men's hockey team has not won a championship since 1996, but in recent years, the U.S. junior and youth teams have dominated, winning two of the past four world under-20 tournaments and four of the past five under-18 world titles.

Could a desktop computer game be what makes the young Americans so good?

"Work the brain; the science is there," said Danton Cole, in his fourth season as the coach of USA Hockey's U-18 team. "We have skating coaches and strength coaches and, obviously, hockey coaches to give our guys every advantage. But here's an area where we can further their development: deep learning."

For the past five seasons, USA Hockey has used IntelliGym, an Israeli-developed cognitive training program, to teach hockey sense and spatial awareness to its players in the national team development program and on its national youth teams.

To some observers, the program resembles the old arcade standby "Asteroids," with the user manipulating a triangle through a moving welter of opposing triangles and through escalating levels of difficulty. It looks like a cross between a hockey game and a dogfight in space, taking place on a laptop.

"You have many objects around you, things are happening very fast; you need to respond; you need to have spatial awareness; you need to have very good anticipation; and you need more complex skills, like executive function in your brain and attention control," said Danny Dankner, chief executive of Applied Cognitive Engineering, the company that makes IntelliGym.

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"You can actually train your brain to do that, even in a very, very complex, challenging environment like a hockey game," said Dankner, who added that the program was based on one used to train pilots in the Israeli air force, in which he served as an officer. The company also produces a basketball version of IntelliGym.

Thirteen players on last year's U.S. U-20 team, which won the world junior tournament in Russia, trained with IntelliGym during their time with USA Hockey. That number included Seth Jones and Jacob Trouba, who jumped directly to the NHL this season.

The Americans will defend their world junior title starting Thursday in Malmo, Sweden. Sixteen of the 26 players on the team's preliminary roster have trained on the computer game, most of them for at least two years.

The use of IntelliGym has spread beyond USA Hockey. Last season, the Niagara IceDogs of the Ontario Hockey League and Concordia University in Montreal used the system. This season's adoptees include Seattle, Portland, Regina, Lethbridge and Ottawa in the Canadian major junior leagues, as well as the Union College men's team and the Maine and Ohio State women's teams in the NCAA.

"We love the gaming, so this is nothing new for us," said Trevor Dulong, a 17-year-old center using the program with the junior league Ottawa 67's. "It's a cool experience."

Boston Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton said he enjoyed the program when he played for Niagara, becoming so deft he could repeatedly pass the puck to himself to conquer a level. The Islanders' Ryan Strome also scored high on the game last season, when he led Niagara in actual on-ice scoring.

Shayne Rover, who used the program in his fourth and final season as a Niagara defenseman, said, "You recognize more on the ice without realizing you're recognizing it."

After scoring one goal in his first three years, he scored eight in his fourth and said he thought the computer game had helped. Rover now plays for York University.

"Making better decisions on the ice, what we call spatial awareness, can be trained if you have the right tools," Dankner said. "During our research, we asked coaches how they trained those skills, and most told us, 'Either you're born with it, or you're not.' They said it was very, very hard to train them directly."

Not all players are fans of the system. J.T. Miller of the Rangers, who played for the United States in four youth world tournaments, said he did not bother with it.

"I just didn't think a computer game was going to help me become a better hockey player," he said.

At USA Hockey, players begin the program at the simplest level, using it twice a week in 15- to 20-minute sessions - but never on nights before games or on consecutive days. As they progress through the levels, the game becomes harder and faster, requiring new steps such as making a minimum number of passes before shooting or playing while the screen is obscured. Those sessions can last up to 45 minutes. Each player's scores go to the coaches and to analysts at IntelliGym.

"The information the guys at IntelliGym have is really in-depth," Cole said. "Without knowing our guys, they can go in and describe how the young man processes and that we need to work on particular things. They're spot on with it. We can jump on it and get those guys moving again."

Cole cited one player who had shown no progress in the game for a month or so.

"The IntelliGym guys' analysis was that the player was drifting off, and that's certainly a big component to hockey - your focus and concentration," he said. "And through addressing that with him, boom, he got back on track."

Cole added: "The guys are surprised when that kind of feedback comes back. Our guys are competitive. They want to be the best on the team, so when they see something like that, they get frustrated and ask questions and want to get better at it. They get more out of it that way."